Posted
by
timothy
on Friday May 20, 2011 @07:27AM
from the not-how-google-would-do-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Texas Instruments has struck back against Nspire gamers and hackers with even stronger anti-downgrade protection in OS 3.0.2, after the TI calculator hacking community broke the anti-downgrade protection found in OS 2.1 last summer and the new one in OS 3.0.1 a month ago. In addition to that, in OS 3.0.1 the hacker community found Lua programming support and created games and software using it. Immediately, TI retaliated by adding an encryption check to make sure those third-party generated programs won't run on OS 3.0.2." But if you want it, you can get OS 3.0.2 here.

I remember when the community broke the TI-92. What did TI do then? Release an upgraded version of it and made it easier ton write in assembly. What happened, TI? I no longer need your calculator products, but this is a sad thing to see.

What happened to TI? They had a visit from Sony executives... after the doors closed all anyone heard was screams and a fight, the doors opened and all the TI execs said, "everything is all right, no need to be alarmed.... DRM is holy... DRM is good... All Hail the DRM....."

My understanding is that their calculators won't be allowable in standardized testing environments anymore if there is a likelihood that users are modifying the devices. I have never been part of the market for scientific calculators, so I'm not sure whether this is really a huge market for TI or just an excuse.

[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.

[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]
No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.

Absolutely. If I go down to the supermarket I might have to compare unit prices, total cash etc - so a small calculator in my pocket is a good idea. I am unlikely to come across anything needing a laptop's power or find it worth carrying one. At geek levels of 8500 or more you may well not be able to resist trying to optimise the queuing at checkouts or simulate the airflow for optimum placement of air-conditioning outlets, freezers and doorways.

[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.

Absolutely. If I go down to the supermarket I might have to compare unit prices, total cash etc - so a small calculator in my pocket is a good idea. I am unlikely to come across anything needing a laptop's power or find it worth carrying one. At geek levels of 8500 or more you may well not be able to resist trying to optimise the queuing at checkouts or simulate the airflow for optimum placement of air-conditioning outlets, freezers and doorways.

For that simple arithmetic use the calc on your mobile phone - you're not going to want to carry a TI or HP calc around just to add grocery bills.

[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]
No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.

Absolutely. If I go down to the supermarket I might have to compare unit prices, total cash etc - so a small calculator in my pocket is a good idea. I am unlikely to come across anything needing a laptop's power or find it worth carrying one. At geek levels of 8500 or more you may well not be able to resist trying to optimise the queuing at checkouts or simulate the airflow for optimum placement of air-conditioning outlets, freezers and doorways.

For that simple arithmetic use the calc on your mobile phone - you're not going to want to carry a TI or HP calc around just to add grocery bills.

You're right, that's what I do usually. I do take a calculator if I am doing something like buying carpet and tiles and need a lot of calculations, its much more usable than my built-in phone calculator.

[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.

Er, I wasnt aware you could do 3d graphing on LibreOffice calc, factor algebraic equations, solve for x, or any of the other basic things a good decent TI-82 equivalent can do (and those things are like 20 years old).Octave appears to be a programming language, that is, that I cant simply plug in Y=3x+z^2 and get a graph. Hooray for reducing simplicity! Hooray for complexity for its own sake!

Seriously, it sounds like youre either trolling, or have never used a TI-82+ equivalent. They are easy enough for

Er, I wasnt aware you could do 3d graphing on LibreOffice calc, factor algebraic equations, solve for x, or any of the other basic things a good decent TI-82 equivalent can do (and those things are like 20 years old).Octave appears to be a programming language, that is, that I cant simply plug in Y=3x+z^2 and get a graph. Hooray for reducing simplicity! Hooray for complexity for its own sake!

Seriously, it sounds like youre either trolling, or have never used a TI-82+ equivalent. They are easy enough for a budding 7th grader to use, powerful enough for real world use, and have a quite nice BASIC programming function (which I credit for getting me into the world of computers). And honestly, I dont know what math class would allow you to bring a laptop in, or why its fair to compare a $100 (new) TI or HP calc to a $450 laptop.

There's not a lot that one of the pieces of software I listed can't do.

Calling what I listed "a bunch of software that turns a desktop computer into a desktop calculator" is about as asinine as you can get.

Then I must have misunderstood what you meant by "desktop calculator". You may have meant a four- or five-function. Please allow me to clarify my point: a desktop computer running Maxima or Octave or NumPy is confined to a desk.

It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get

Unless you're in an environment that forbids possession of small laptops. Much of TI's market has to spend seven state-mandated hours a day in such an environment. In addition, a dedicated calculator starts the math application within one second of turning the power on, unlike (as I

>You'd know that if you ever held a machete you arrogant ass. But I somehow don't see an image of you walking through the jungle with a machete in one hand and your HP or TI calculator in the other even semi realistic.

If you think you can toughen a laptop, with a 10+" screen, large keyboard, large LION battery, heatsinks, fans, and all, up to the same standard you can with a 2" by 4" calculator, you are sadly mistaken. Larger more complex devices are by nature harder to ruggedize, especially when the screen gets large enough to be able to flex and break.

Not to mention ruggedizing it (adding a solid steel frame to the screen, for example) would add quite a bit to the weight and cost, so all of a sudden we're talking abou

If you think you can toughen a laptop, with a 10+" screen, large keyboard, large LION battery, heatsinks, fans, and all, up to the same standard you can with a 2" by 4" calculator, you are sadly mistaken. Larger more complex devices are by nature harder to ruggedize, especially when the screen gets large enough to be able to flex and break.

Not to mention ruggedizing it (adding a solid steel frame to the screen, for example) would add quite a bit to the weight and cost, so all of a sudden we're talking about a $1500 laptop weighing 3kg, vs a $100 calculator weighing 250 grams. And for what gain? To use an OS not designed for mathmatics, on a device with 1/50th of the battery life?

Last time I checked there were specialised laptops for the battlefield, carried by troops.

No calculator is going to allow you to check or fix mistakes with the ease that even the simplest spreadsheet software will. Punching in long tedious calculations by hand is not something anyone should do in this day and age.

I've said this a couple of times now but if manufacturers are so keen on not allowing the hacker community to do whatever they want with their property, why don't they just license the damn things? Seems to be a better way to get users to not tamper with the electronics (at least legally) and provides a legal recourse should they do so.

Outside of warranty, what incentive is there for a company like TI or Apple to continue to build better mouse traps when the hacker community usually just cracks it within d

I've said this a couple of times now but if manufacturers are so keen on not allowing the hacker community to do whatever they want with their property, why don't they just license the damn things?

Companies do "license the damn things", but sometimes only to other established companies. One example is Nintendo, which requires a dedicated secure office and a previous commercial game on another platform out of any licensee. And even when they do license to individuals, people complain about the $99 per year fee to run your own programs on your own hardware that Microsoft pioneered (App Hub) and Apple standardized (iPhone developer program).

IANAL but if, for example, Apple says, "You aren't purchasing an iPhone. You're purchasing a license to use the iPhone. By using it, you agree not to jailbreak the phone. If you do, we'll take you to court and you will have to pay us $2000 and can not use any other Apple products for five years."

While not very customer friendly, I don't see the difference between this and constantly trying to outsmart the hackers.

This kind of behavior is why my wife got a HP 50G for her birthday, rather than the TI-92. As far as I know, HP doesn't care one whit about what you do with their calculators, just as long as you give them money for the initial purchase.

I remember being FORCED to buy a TI graphing calculator in order to pass a college mathematics course. I remember all we needed it for was to plot graphs, which could have been (and probably should have been) done on paper. I didn't really learn anything by using it, except how to use the calculator. I used it for a couple months and then promptly sold it when I was done with the course.
What a scam by my college and TI.

I just bought a pork joint, now the instructions on the packaging are very clear on how to roast the thing but I was going to dry rub it and then smoke it for a few hours. Does anyone know if pork comes with DRM to stop me doing that or will I get a DMCA takedown notice halfway through smoking?

I am disappointed with TI. My first programming language was TI-BASIC on the TI-83 Plus. My second was assembly for the Z80 processor on that calculator. Both were supported by TI (the program used to transfer assembly programs from a computer to the calculator was produced and distributed by TI). It is the reason I chose to pursue computer science in college, and has made me the happy programmer I am today. It is sad TI does not want to allow today's youth the same opportunity through the same means.

As a non-programmer, which the test creators and proctors likely are as well, here is my train of thought:

1) Cool. Good solution.2) Wait, that means we have to check every calculator.3) There were ~100 students taking the SAT/ACT tests when I took them. About 20-30 students in my low level math courses in college. Decent time sink to have each student turn on the calculator, wait for the checksum, verify it, move to the next student. Waiting for students to turn off their calculators because there will

we all did that in highschool.... the teacher would come around and reset each of our calculators, but we had an app that faked it so we wouldn't loose all the work we had been doing writing video games for the thing.

You have to check EVERY Calculator already to look for firmware revision. So how is this a problem? It's not like the older version added wrong, so running a older firmware will give me advantages that lazy test administrators will not bother to look at.

OH how about simply supplying the calculators for the test? Sounds like a better solution that all these highly educated nimrods cant seem to think of on their own.

OH how about simply supplying the calculators for the test? Sounds like a better solution that all these highly educated nimrods cant seem to think of on their own.

This will only work if the school buys calculators for everyone at the start of the year that will be identical in operation to the ones handed out during exams. Else students risk having to spend the first part of an exam learning how to operate a new calculator.Say $120 per calculator, plus $20 per year for service / replacements. Multiply by number of students at the high school.Then add the exam calculators, which have to be either bought new or re-flashed and inspected before the exam (what if a last

Why do students need graphing calculators to sit exams?
My University specified a standard model for exams (I studied Physics), which they supplied during exams. You could buy one the same (cost was approximately $20, since it didn't do graphing or anything clever) if you wanted, but since all one needs is trig functions, perhaps some stats, and basic arithmetic. Everything else should likely be understood/remembered by the student since that's what exams are there to test.

... so how long until students catch on to what model of calculator will be used for the test. That's an easy swap as the instructor finishes passing out exams/calculators.
The real fix, IMHO, is to design the problems so that no calculator is needed. Or have the student reduce calcs to their simplest form without running the numbers.

In high-school I wrote an arbitrary problem approximating algorithm for the TI-82 in its horribly broken calculator basic. Also, we wrote applications to play solitare, reversi, tetris, and a really crappy overhead shooter without resorting to assembly.

If you have ANY ability to program your calculator exposed, you have zero test integrity. Anything less than that is delusional. Whether that's Ti-Calculator Basic or a more modern programming language doesn't really matter.

As another example, the TI-92 I had in College was banned from the SAT's for having a QWERTY keyboard, yet the TI-89's shared the same internals without a keyboard and were OK. The difference? You had to press the "Function" key to type with a QWERTY equivalent. It's security theater.

Why are we teaching children to do jobs that can be done by computers? Computers are terrible and math and really good at calculation -- why don't we divide the effort (and hence the instruction) along those lines.

I'm not saying we shouldn't teach children to do arithmetic, but there's a limited amount of math instruction time available, and I don't think we should waste it being sure Johnny can manually calculate large bits of long division instead of teaching him what division might actually accomplish.

If you want to be sure Johnny understands the calculation, have him write a program for his calculator that does it. Once he can do that he clearly understands the manipulation required so there's no reason to make him keep doing manually it when there's a $0.03 device that can do the same thing faster and more accurately.

To me this all seems equivalent to teaching kids to farm using ox-powered plows rather than tractors -- yes, it's important to understand how it works, but it's not important to be able to actually do it efficiently once you've got that understanding.

The mathematics required for any undergrad and probably many phd level degrees has not changed in what..100? 200 years? Depending on your age, what worked for you parents (or grandparents) and theirs before is just as valid today as it was then. Personally, I would remove calculators from every exam as they encourage plug and chug instead of thought.

Because it strengthens the part of the brain that does symbol manipulation. Learning to do long division quickly and accurately sets up the brain so it can do more complex algorithm's involving variables quickly and accurately.

Symbolic integration requires a certain amount of 1. constancy and 2. ability to apply rules for symbol manipulation. Long division requires a certain amount of 1. constancy, and 2. ability to apply rules for symbolic manipulation. Symbols being just numbers rather than just numbers and variables, but a very similar process. You would not have been allowed in that class if you hadn't mastered long division. You practice Long division until you can do it quickly and accurately so you have the mental foundati

it's important to understand how it works, but it's not important to be able to actually do it efficiently once you've got that understanding.

How else do you test whether a student really understands how math works, if not by a proctored test free of computational aids?

I owned multiple graphing calculators in high school and college, and always had simple programs for some of the most common tasks (e.g. quadratic formula), which were immensely useful for checking my work (and occasionally a useful shortcut

As another example, the TI-92 I had in College was banned from the SAT's for having a QWERTY keyboard

Perhaps there's a reasoning behind that: programming a calculator without QWERTY is a rather hellish experience if you need to do it quickly, as in a test. So if the memory is cleared before the test, the TI-89 is fine while the 92 wouldn't be.

While there are 10-20 students in my maths classes at university, there are about 500 of us in the program, and all 500 of us sit the exams at the same time, in the same building, with approximately 2,500 others at exactly the same time, in exactly the same location.

Each proctor is in charge of monitoring about 100 students, which isn't hard since they keep their heads down, and there's a space of just under a meter in between each person to the next closest person.

I love my TI-89. I couldn't imagine doing too much without it. Yes I can do it all by hand, but it's much faster with the 89. Dec to Binary or Hex. Unit conversion (And you can give it weird inputs like how long to move x ft using m/s^2, etc). rref with large arrays to solve linear problems. (And I don't always have Matlab with me).But some stuff takes forever to do. We have portable devices that are crackin

If they want them to be tamper-proof, I think they had better change the design a bit. Get rid of that pesky data port for loading on programs. And encase the circuitry in black epoxy. If you are just going to wipe the calculator before the exam, you don't need a data port to program it. Maybe if the school is really that worried about it, they could have their own set of certified calculators that they hand out at the beginning of exams. Always make sure to have a few extra in case they break (not th

I had a professor who had that mentality. I showed him how to program a calculator as a freshman, and he not only said that I deserve that advantage if I can write a program to compute a riemann sum, but if I wrote the source code on the exam he would count it as showing my work and give partial credit if I got the wrong answer.

For mathematics this is probably completely possible. The more mathy courses I took Algebra & Geometry, discrete math, and others didn't require a calculator. It more stuff like science, physics, and engineering classes that tend to lean more on the calculator usage. Granted in many of those cases you don't need anything more complex than a basic scientific calculator, but in many cases it really helps. Plus, it prepares you for the real world, where you'll be using a calculator for most of your wor

I majored in physics. After freshman level courses we were NEVER asked to calculate a number. Everything was derived symbolically and the answer to a problem was a formula. That's really the hard part after all; plugging in numbers and getting a numerical answer is trivial.

It's worse than that: In every college exam where I've been allowed a calculator so far, no one cared about the model of calculator. Their attitude is, time spent playing with the calculator, attempting to cheat or to exploit some advanced feature for an edge, is time wasted by not actually doing the math or physics you need to do. The exams where they would care, they just disallowed all calculators to make things easier.

Now, I barely hacked my calculator to help with the exam -- I just put a few physical

Just think about it for a moment; if someone managed to deliberately or accidentally bypass the maths integrity checks they could actually divide by zero and the whole universe would collapse in on itself - this would really ruin everyone's day.

Ti has a long history of screwing with homebrew apps, especially ASM apps.

They only started supporting ASM on their calcs when they couldn't stop zshell and fargo devs from getting the most out of their 85 and 92 calcs, and then the SDK was crippled with a stupid code signing scheme that limited code size, which the community hacked around.

As for their current offerings, I swear that Ti anymore builds their calcs based on high school teacher input instead of Math professors and scientist input. Teachers wan

Why would I want to buy a product from a company that so hates it's customers?

Two reasons: 1. If you don't buy one you can't do the homework and quizzes and thus fail the class. 2. If you pull out an Android device during downtime in class (even in flight mode) it gets confiscated by faculty, but if you pull out a TI product you're fine.

I couldn't help but notice that most people don't have homework or quizzes. They don't have "faculty. Surely, it wouldn't cripple TI to make models that aren't intended for the limited purpose of taking tests.

Surely, it wouldn't cripple TI to make models that aren't intended for the limited purpose of taking tests.

And those models would be intended for...what, exactly? What purpose does a TI calculator serve these days that could not be better served by an Android phone, a tablet, or a netbook? Calculators today are for people taking tests who are prohibited from having connected or truly capable devices. They have no other purpose.

Because their main customers are academic test producers who mandate TI calculators for use with the scan tron tests because they're less "hackable". This causes every student in high school to be forced to go out and buy one for use on the exams.

The enthusiast crowd isn't even a rounding error in that market, so it makes sense for TI not to care about them.

Not only that but enthusiast crowd actually works on actively harming the goals of main target audience (schools, doing only what it is designed to do and nothing else). As a result TI has no choice but to stop hacking by any means necessary.

...which is why I was so surprised that not a single professor I've had so far who allows calculators has asked for a specific version, or even a specific company. HP is much kinder to enthusiasts, but no one even blinks when I bring a high-end HP model.